[T]he affinity between free market economic thinking and hard money is an interesting and important phenomenon….I do think there’s a deep logic to it. Once you concede the fact that prosperity over both the long- and short-term depends in part on competent demand management from a powerful bureaucratic organization, then it’s difficult to resist the moral logic of redistribution regardless of the empirical merits of any particular government program. But there’s a deep yearning to give the case for free markets a profound moral reading rather than a pragmatic one, and that reading is hard to maintain in the face of a modern monetary system. Hence the hankering for gold.

Right, and by the same token, there’s a deep logic to the progressive support for graduated taxation and hatred of the gold standard. Someone who has no problem recommending that the government take people’s hard-earned money to spend on pet projects clearly has no respect for private property. It’s not at all surprising that such a person is fine with the US government reneging on its contractual obligations to redeem dollars for gold, and even lock people for up to 10 years in prison for the crime of holding on to a yellow piece of metal that they had acquired in legitimate commerce.

Oh, note that the URL for Yglesias’ post is “monetary derp at Cato.” Remember, “derp” is the extremely dorky term that our hipster Keynesian bloggers have adopted to be shorthand for “refusing to acknowledge that your views are totally falsified by the evidence.” On that note, click on this Yglesias post from mid-July. I don’t want to spoil the surprise; just check it out to see why Yglesias can justifiably mock others for their horrible derpitude.

“Once you concede the fact that prosperity over both the long- and short-term depends in part on competent demand management from a powerful bureaucratic organization, then it’s difficult to resist the moral logic of redistribution regardless of the empirical merits of any particular government program.”

It sounds like you and Yglesias don’t really disagree about the reasons for the connection between support for free markets and support for hard money, it’s just that you view the connection positively while he views it negatively.

When my get-up-and-go has got up and went,
I hanker for a hunk o’ gold!
When I’m dancin’ a hoedown and my boots kinda slow down,
Or anytime I’m weak in the knees,
I hanker for a hunk of,
A slab or slice or chunk of,
An ounce a day’s a winner
And yet won’t spoil my dinner!
I hanker for a hunk o’ gold!

Bob, I clicked on the July Yglesias post and I don’t get it. If I understand the word “derp” correctly–God, I hate that word–wouldn’t he have to be holding on to that view now in order to demonstrate his “derpitude?” Is he?

David, do you think I still cling to the view that official CPI inflation will break double digits by January 2013? If not, does that mean Yglesias wouldn’t accuse me of derpitude?

In that context then: To my knowledge, Yglesias has not blogged anything along the lines of, “I used to think the federal government would be able to improve on the health insurance market. Now I have to revisit that position, since they either lack the desire or competence to set up a website.”

Forgive the intrusion (I realize your question was directed at Bob), but I believe you could argue that Yglesias was being a bit derpy in writing that post to begin with.

Even if we ignore the relatively strong circumstantial arguments behind all those gloomy predictions, the federal government’s track record with projects like these alone should’ve precluded any expectation of a successful debut. In fact, I think you could argue that the adoption of a progressive worldview, in and of itself, is a profound expression of fundamental derpitude.

As a person of Jewish Polish descent, the combination of the words “competent management” and “powerful bureaucratic organization” sends shivers down my spine and makes the hair in the back of my neck stand. I imagine those who went through the Soviet experience will instinctively know the feeling. The economics and theory of currency and money quite apart.

“Once you concede the fact that prosperity over both the long- and short-term depends in part on competent demand management from a powerful bureaucratic organization.”

This isn’t a fact, it’s a myth.

[T]he affinity between socialist thinking and soft money is an interesting and important phenomenon….I do think there’s a deep logic to it. Once you concede the fact that prosperity over both the long- and short-term does not depend in any way on demand management from a powerful bureaucratic organization, then it’s difficult to resist the moral logic of private property regardless of the empirical merits of any particular private program. But there’s a deep yearning to give the case for socialism a profound moral reading rather than a pragmatic one, and that reading is hard to maintain in the face of a modern monetary system based on private property. Hence the hankering for government paper.

Dr. Murphy,
As usual you ignore the monetarist, friedmanites libertarians. It might be that some progressives are fine with tax and spend infrastructure projects. (although the progressive support for Keynesian pump priming is surprisingly small- fdr financed the new deal more out of higher taxes than increased deficits)

But not all libertarians are fine with the idea of GOVERNMENT MANDATING that gold is legal tender for all debts, public and private. I’ll say it before, and I’ll say it again, the gold standard is a government standard. To suppose, as Murray Rothbard did, and as major freedom does now, that a free market in money will most likely lead to something akin to a gold standard is sheer lunacy. Most likely, it would lead to a Hayekian multi-currency system, which I agree is the ideal free market. system. There would be a place for gold and platinum, for gold bugs and people who like expensive money, but it would also circulate among cheaper more inexpensive metals like silver and copper, as well as fractional reserve banknotes, and numbers on a virtual spreadsheet. (JP Morgan has a thousand ounces of platinum, and 10 billion currency units worth of digital “plats” redeemable at the market price between those numbers and physical platinum. )

How would banks and mining companies make their money?

Banks would create currency as they lend, the more people accept that currency, the more money they would make, ditto for mining companies, the amount of profit in either case is determined by the willingness of people to accept that currency as income received by other peoples spending…

Spending and income?.. Hmmm.. sounds familiar, what would be the closest approximation to this in a sub-optimal government system we have now?

“Why? The free market has no problem producing single standards when it needs to. And costs would be heavily reduced by having only one currency.”

A couple of reasons. Even without a monopoly over the production of the money market. a little economic psychology tells us something that the money illusion is still active.

Personal taste. Different people and companies around the world might not like certain currencies.

Competitive devaluation and export advantage- Of course this would be a useless strategy in the long run, because everyone would do it.

Liquidity shortages. Lets say theres a huge demand to hold gold physically. If there were one universal standard a horrific depression would follow, (because prices and wages are still sticky. ) The REAL free market response to this is to switch a cheaper substitute metal to do business in.

“Fraud is not an acceptable way to make money.”

Fractional reserve banking isn’t fraud, PROVIDED people know its NOT literally redeemable on demand. If JP Morgan has a million ounces of silver and 10 billion in checking and savings account, as long as JP Morgan dollars trade at a discount to reflect the fact everyone knows its inflating, then everything is fine, and who cares. Fractional Reserve banking only becomes a problem when people actually believe that the silver or gold or platinum is physically there and redeemable on demand, instead of at the discounted market price.

“Mining companies would make their money from mining money, and banks would charge interest as they do now.

Miners wouldn’t have a market to sell their gold or silver or platinum or diamonds to if nobody wanted to spend gold and silver and platinum and diamonds, or get paid in them. The same goes for digital currency created by banks. The ultimate drivers of these are income and spending, both related to NGDP.

“Does not follow.”
Yes it does.
And also, GDP is a horrible metric. NOMINAL GDP is even worse. NGDP grew fantastically in Weimar Germany….

“A couple of reasons. Even without a monopoly over the production of the money market. a little economic psychology tells us something that the money illusion is still active.”

How can you know that when there is no free market in money to be observed?

“Personal taste. Different people and companies around the world might not like certain currencies.”

That justifies some people using force to impose their ideal standard on others against their will?

“Liquidity shortages. Lets say theres a huge demand to hold gold physically. If there were one universal standard a horrific depression would follow, (because prices and wages are still sticky. ) The REAL free market response to this is to switch a cheaper substitute metal to do business in.”

Why would there be a sudden urge to stockpile gold?

““Does not follow.”
Yes it does.”

No, it does not. Spending and income does not necessitate artificial spending targeting from a coercive monopoly.

Do you know the difference between ignoring, and choosing the highest valued statements to make in a finite space?

“But not all libertarians are fine with the idea of GOVERNMENT MANDATING that gold is legal tender for all debts, public and private. I’ll say it before, and I’ll say it again, the gold standard is a government standard. ‘

Why are libertarian’s opinion on this important? Why are you “ignoring” everyone else?

“Once you concede the fact that prosperity over both the long- and short-term depends in part on competent demand management”

Ignoring the absurd characterization of Federal Reserve policy as competent, notice the qualifier “in part”. I wonder what other forms of authoritarian meddling Iglesias thinks are necessary, in addition to “demand management” to create a utopian economic system?

Keynesians like to portray themselves as saviors of the Free Market System. Yet, it seems as if the “deep logic” of their theories must necessarily lead to total government control of the national economy, given their assumptions about the superhuman competence and moral rectitude of technocratic elites and the inherent instability and unfairness of free markets.

The link to the Iglesias post about how wonderful Obamacare implementation will be and how we should ignore all of the negative media coverage about it is priceless. I especially liked his hypothetical headline “A Bunch of People Got Free Dental Care Today Because They Live In A State That Offers Dental Benefits Under Medicaid”. Where can I get me some of this “free” dental care? Is it paid for with some of that “free” Federal Reserve fiat money?

I wonder how Matt would answer this question – If gold really is a barbarous relic with no real value in a modern monetary system, then why do central banks own mountains of the stuff?

Free markets and hard money are in opposition. Hoovers tight money devastated the economy and nearly destroyed capitalism. So did Chancellor Bruning’s hard money policies lead to Hitler. And no, the 1923 Weimar hyperinflation did not lead to Hitler in 1924. To assert otherwise is to claim that “errors in economic calculation” (gag me with a spoon, when I see this, I can’t help but think of an industrialist “calculating” like a Zen Buddhist monk in the middle of an empty factory) took TEN YEARS to reveal themselves, long after the hyperinflation had ended. In the mid twenties, hitler tried to stage a coup and failed. He wrote Mein Kampf while in prison. In 1928, the Nazis only received 2.8% of the votes. These are indisputable HISTORICAL FACTS.

(To be fair so are free markets and hyperinflation, although the worst of the worst tyrant in human history cam from tight money, not soft)

Perhaps I am a bit silly but why in a libertarian society dictate that anything is ‘legal tender’? Why not allow people to assume several various tenders and slide in and out of it as will be. Now the Government can tell people how it will ‘pay them’ and then people can choose to work for it or not. I personally would not be upset if my ‘pay’ were notes redeemable for amounts of gold… Or heck Bitcoins for that matter.

Just suggesting that a ‘gold’ standard is not the only ‘standard’ that a government ‘could’ adopt.

Unless you are an an-cap, minarchy is the way to go in an ideal libertarian system. How would the government collect taxes in such a system? Collecting taxes in anything other than the governments own currency would be a bureaucratic nightmare. So PRIVATE debt legal tender laws should be abolished, which are the real culprit behind the mystery that private businesses won’t offset a liquidity crunch like the GD or GR.

I think the problem confronting us is that violence is real, and if you accept the basic principles of trade then you have to accept that violence (and by inference lack of violence) is a commodity which can be traded. Forget about whether it is moral or immoral to do so, point is that it is POSSIBLE to trade in violence and also protection rackets.

So then you are left with deciding whether you are happier with a competitive market in violence (i.e. gang warfare) or a monopoly market in violence (i.e. feudalism or pseudo-Democracy). Personally I lean towards the monopoly market, but if government is a protection racket then at least focus on being a high quality protection racket, rather than a bit of this and a bit of that.

I accept, competitive markets make for honest markets, and efficient markets. There’s a case for competitive protection rackets, but that implies regular warfare, so either a lot of people get hurt on a regular basis or we bring back Chivalry (which seems difficult under the circumstance).

“Which “people” are you talking about? You make it seem like 100% of the population didn’t want to be free to use gold without forcing that on others, which is clearly false.”

Have you never heard of the Crime of ’73, Silver was de-monetized over howls of protest. Populations in western States WANTED to use silver, as did farmers.. It was eastern coasts of the United states that favored the gold standard, Wall Street, Republicans, and Big Business. So it was in effect the gold standard advocates that FORCED it down the throats of the majority of the American people.

“Do you seriously not grasp the difference between individual desires, and everyone else’s desires?”

“Stop lumping every single human into a single monolithic Borg collective who all say yay or nay.

The implication being people in general, which is quite different to just some people.

By the way, using the Coinage Act of 1873 as an example of why people in general don’t want hard money is pretty dishonest, given that the people protesting were demanding a continuation of the existing silver dollar standard which is absolutely also hard money. In a subtle way, it’s even worse because there’s already the hidden presumption that government has a right to tell people which money they should use at all.

You are a complete lunatic with full ignorance of basic facts. By the only criterion that matters for money tightness or looseness, ngdp and money velocity collapsed completely during the great contraction. The fact that interest rates were low doesn’t mean a damned thing!

And no, 9/11 does not have the same pull it had in 2013 that it had in 2003

In the real world, where not everyone are raging violence advocating nutcases, there are standards of money tightness and looseness that go beyond central planning in total spending. There exists standards that are consistent with respect for other people’s persons and property.

I am sure you can understand that when someone who doesn’t advocate for violence against innocent people, comes into contact with someone who does, they might think that they, i.e. you, are sociopathic lunatics.

More like “joking” – because I don’t think Rothbard would have advocated the specific principle of smears and insults as payback for previous smears and insults, due to him having more class than me, “but not really” – because as far as I know it really does follow from Rothbard’s stated principles.

“Suppose, for example, that police beat and torture a suspected murderer to find information (not to wring a confession, since obviously a coerced confession could never be considered valid). If the suspect turns out to be guilty, then the police should be exonerated, for then they have only ladled out to the murderer a parcel of what he deserves in return; “

I wasn’t disputing whether Rothbard’s *rights* theory used proportional punishment to define the maximum legal amount of retribution for an initiation of aggression.

Rather, I was hoping MF was joking when he thought that was the right criterion for a guy running his blog to use, when asking others to not make Austro-libertarians look like jerks to the rest of the world, when posting on his own blog.

Walter Block actually advocated two teeth for a tooth. (See, I read stuff and everything.)

While you see Austro-Libertarians looking like jerks, I see it as Austro-Libertarians being sophisticated enough to play at any level, including the base and depraved ones.

Do you think in 10 years, there will exist at least one human being who will report: “I used to think libertarians were simplistic thinkers with knee-jerk policy conclusions. But then I saw this guy Major Freedom call someone insane, and I realized the libertarians were actually pretty sophisticated.”

No I really had never looked up Rothbard’s personal details. Just took his writing at face value.

I’m quite aware that Rothbard was far too intelligent and honest to merely copy stuff. However people do get influenced by their upbringing, which is why when I saw the “eye for an eye” comment I got curious and searched for Rothbard’s history.

You must admit, Rothbard had a rather uncompromising attitude: great attention to details, very systematic and meticulous, but a bit extreme in his demands. This does just happen to fit the commonly understood Jewish stereotype. And yes I understand that stereotypes are not the best way to judge people, but in Rothbard’s case it seems to work.

“Says anyone with an ounce of commonsense, you fool. And I don’t advocate violence. (At least the worst levels of coercion)”

You don’t have common sense at all, precisely because you advocate for violence.

‘Complete non sequitur. favoring ngdp targeting does not mean that one doesn’t have a respect for private property.”

It was a total, 100% sequitur. You asserted that the only criterion that “matters” is one where the criterion setters are coercive central planners.

I was merely correcting you on that point, and arguing that a peaceful cooperation standard “matters”.

And you are absolutely, unequivocally wrong to claim that NGDP targeting by a central bank is consistent with private property. Central banks are not free market institutions. They are crations of the state, backed by violence against existing private property owners.

The fact that this basic fact flies a mile over your head only reinforces my conviction that you’re a mentally defective degenerate.

Not sure who is ignorant of basic fact here, fast Eddie. The Fed had an extremely loose monetary stance during the 20’s, mostly to help Great Britain re-establish and maintain the pre-war parity between gold and the British pound.
Prices remained stable due to tremendous gains in productivity. Most of the credit expansion manifested itself in a stock market and real estate bubble. When the banks started tightening in 1929 that bubble burst. Elementary history, dude.

And with regards to Herbie “tight fisted” Hoover: He doubled gov expenditures in less than 4 years in constant dollars, with 40-50% annual deficits. Hoover Dam, anyone? Of course with the same effect as the current spending spree. Even a bloody donkey doesn’t hit himself on the same stone twice.

Yglesias post about the roll out of Obamacare was very prescient. The media is making a big deal out of minor glitches. There is still plenty of time to enroll before the deadline which has been extended to the end of March.

Also, supporting govt spending on pet projects does not mean a person has no respect for private property. If you support a speed limit does that mean you have no respect for private property? Your car is property and the govt is restricting your use of that property. Anyone who has studied property law knows that property ownership is usually subject to limitations (“bundle of sticks”).

Tell me this, would you provide personal information, including SSN to a web site that you knew wasn’t security tested? Have you ever provided your SSN to any website, tested or not? Or would you?
That is, if you could even get that far, most people can’t even get past the first screen without major errors.
There is no way in hell 7MM people will be able to sign up by March. It will take them that long, if not longer to fix the issues and fully test the system. Remember, you get only one chance to make a first impression, and they blew it. An the tragic thing is, we’ll end up with fewer people insured, because many will lose their health insurance because their plan doesn’t meet the gov’s requirements.
The whole thing is a fraud, plain and simple.

Good evening passengers, we’d like to take a moment to inform you that we are experiencing a minor glitch. The engines seem to have shut down and we are unable to restart them. Not to worry, there may still be time to diagnose and repair the issue before we crash into the earth.

P.S. Is you second paragraph intended to be an endorsement of fascism? (“bundle of sticks”)